Before I admit my inability to supply Tufts' activists with their next villain, I offer an abridged list of some topics that never gathered enough popular support for me to dedicate an entire column to them:
Unfair trade coffee: Do you know how many farmers you bankrupt when you choose to not drink fair trade coffee? Does the French Roast really taste that much better than Uganda Blend? A ban on unfair trade coffee is the best way to signal to those corporate fat cats that we're not dependent on their bourgeois commodities.
Mama hens: The number one c---block in universities nationwide is the mama hen, the plus-sized, self-appointed ringleader of most female cliques. Her primary responsibility is scooping up her chickadees and getting them back to the nest before any male poachers can lure them away from the pack. Mama hens rely on peer pressure and shame to coerce their more attractive peers into watching "The Office" reruns and pigging out on chocolate-peanut buttercup ice cream instead of hooking up with that hottie in Zeta Psi.
Cheryl Milligan e-mails: Dear Cheryl, I enjoy a constant flood of e-mails detailing the ins and outs of intramural sports, so this isn't coming from me. However, I recently discovered that a majority of people don't share this affinity. For starters, can we at least fix the subject line in your e-mail blasts? They don't need to read "Announcement from Cheryl Milligan." We know that from your e-mail address (also the liberal use of capital letters).
Alternative Joeys: Tufts now has a new Joey. It might be cleaner and more efficient than the old-school inmate bus I'm used to running after or waiting a half-hour for, but this new guy makes campus look like an airport shuttle station. Get rid of this new-school bus, or at least ding it up a bit so it can fit in with the '70s-themed aesthetics of the buildings it hovers in front of.
Voices: Voices of Tufts: The Diversity Experience is an Office of Undergraduate Admissions-based outreach program that provides certain prospective students with the opportunity to visit Tufts. After participating in this program two years in a row, I suggest we either continue it and stop offering to subsidize some participants' travel expenses or ban it altogether and integrate former participants with the thousands of other prefrosh visitors.
The TCU Senate: When not debating whether to pass a resolution condemning the absence of rainbow flags, the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate is blowing your Student Activities Fund on "important stuff." We elected these kids, so we only have ourselves to blame, yet I still can't believe how little public attention has been given to the recent distribution of the $200,000 budgetary surplus.
Instead of holding onto the surplus for a time of true need or even donating it to charity, TCU senators have decided to give it away to clubs that could fabricate any excuse for needing more money. Clubs are supposed to teach thriftiness and resourcefulness. What happened last month was an outright rejection of these values. Instead we saw an outright breakdown of the normal checks and balances, transforming into a competition to see which group could suck more money away from Tufts by fabricating the lamest reasons.
As a result, TUTV is getting a costly dolly, and $50,000 went to a bike-share program, which will be used in part to purchase 30 bikes and helmets. Sharing bikes is one thing, but helmets … that's gross. And yes, the Daily covered this distribution of excess funds in a tame puff piece but forgot to actually point out the huge flaws in the process. Senators turned down condom machines in dormitories, making the TCU Senate seem like the most incompetent group of kids to come together at Tufts. But hey, at least we can rest assured that the Tufts Robotics Club will be getting a $15,000 laser cutter.
